Years ago, the television and radio broadcasts were “live,” meaning that the television or radio broadcast were being made at the same time that the viewer or listener were watching or listening. The broadcasters later found that they could pre-record the shows for later broadcast. Despite this advance, viewers or listeners still needed to watch or listen to the broadcast at the time it was made on the local station.
Although the remainder of this application primarily discusses the prior art and the invention with respect to television and video, the discussion is equally applicable to radio. Accordingly, the term viewer, where the context permits, should be read to mean viewer or listener, and the term television, as the context dictates, should be read to include both video and radio. Moreover, where the term broadcast is used in connection with television, it is intended to refer to television broadcast over cable as well as television broadcast over airwaves.
Some years ago, with the advent of the VCR, television viewers were presented with the ability to “record” a broadcast—permitting the viewer to “time shift” programming. In other words, a viewer could watch a show at different time from when it was broadcast. In addition to “time shifting” the VCR presented another significant advantage—what are herein referred to as VCR-like functions, namely, the ability to fast forward, to rewind and/or to pause the playback. One drawback of a VCR is that the tape technology employed requires that the viewer wait until the entire recording is made prior to playing the recording for viewing. Recently, non-tape systems have been introduced that enable a user to play the recording without waiting for the recording to be complete. Such systems are sold under brands such as TIVO and REPLAY TV. Even using such newer technologies, viewers must remember to have the system record the desired event. Moreover, the device has an unattended recording limit created by the media upon which the content is stored. For example, a VHS type or 8 millimeter VCR tape may typically record 2 hours, or, at a lower quality, up to 8 hours of content. Some tapes can even store more. Instead of using tapes, the TIVO and REPLAY TV systems store content digitally on, for example, computer mass storage device such as a disk. Although no tape is used, these systems can generally provide VCR-like functions. The disks sold with such systems often have capacities of a couple of hours or more, some possibly having tens of hours or more of storage capacity. Regardless of whether a viewer is using a tape system or a disk system—the media eventually fills and requires user intervention to either delete and reuse the media or to insert new media into the unit. Accordingly, viewers must know in advance what shows they desire to record, and must plan to have media available for that recording.
Another more recent change from simple broadcast television is media-on-demand. While today media-on-demand is not generally available on a wide-spread basis, it is available in some areas. A media-on-demand system is generally organized around viewing an entire “show” or movie. The media-on-demand system permits a viewer to request a particular program, and then that program is substantially immediately delivered to the viewer. In more sophisticated media-on-demand systems, the viewer is provided VCR-like functions.
There are also means for content delivery that have become popular over the Internet, namely, downloading, Internet broadcasting and streaming.
Downloading something actually means receiving a copy of it. In other words, a person desiring a particular content element (such as a show or a movie preview or even an advertisement) must locate the element from a source that makes it available for downloading, select the element, and have the source transmit the content element, via the Internet, to local storage space on that person's computer or to storage at another location accessible to that person. The downloaded content element is generally stored as a file on the requester's computer, and the file is usually an exact copy of the original file that was “downloaded.” When the requestor desires to view the content element, a viewing program on a computer is invoked and the downloaded file identified thereto. The viewing program then displays the file. Most viewing programs for viewing moving images have VCR-like functions available to the viewer. There are a number of drawbacks to downloading. First, the content element must be completely received before it can be viewed. In the event that, for example, the download was a half-hour television show, the download from the Internet could take a significant amount of time. Moreover, the viewer may have interest in one small portion of the entire downloaded file, and the download with respect to the remainder of that file was wasteful. Worse, the viewer may determine only seconds after beginning to view the download, that the wrong information was downloaded. Second, the viewer is not afforded random access to portions of the content element before a complete download has taken place. If the viewer desires to view a short section of the content element that starts, for example, in the middle of the content element file, the viewer must commence viewing (or at least downloading) the content from the beginning until the desired portion of the content file is reached. Another drawback of the prior art is that in order to play multiple content elements, the first stream of data must end, and a second data stream must be subsequently buffered and then played—causing a pause between content elements. There is a need for a method and apparatus to play content elements seamlessly.
To receive an Internet broadcast, a viewer selects the broadcast of interest from a source making the broadcast available, and the source thereafter “streams” the data representing the broadcast directly to a broadcast-viewing program. Generally a broadcast-viewing program does not permit the viewer to fast-forward in a broadcast because the information “ahead” of the present position has not been broadcast yet. Moreover, a viewer cannot generally rewind a broadcast in a broadcast-viewing program. More sophisticated broadcast viewing programs may, however, permit limited VCR-like functions by storing the received broadcast information and permitting the viewer to rewinding back to the point where the particular viewer joined the live stream; and similarly to permit pausing, and to permit fast-forwarding, to catch-up to the live stream if the viewer has rewound or paused. These functions would not be unlike the functions of TIVO and REPLAY TV that permit the same type of functions with broadcast television. In any event, the viewer of an Internet broadcast is limited to viewing the portions of the broadcast that he or she received.
Streaming refers to a transmission of a content element over the Internet, the content element being destined for a stream viewing program rather than storage on a storage device. As with downloading, to stream a content element, a person must locate the element from a source that makes it available for streaming, and have the source transmit the content element, via the Internet, to a stream viewing program. As is well known in the art, most stream viewing programs buffer the content element into temporary files. While downloading and streaming share many similar attributes, the streaming content element is usually buffered in temporary files until it is no longer needed, and the temporary files are thereafter deleted. The stream-viewing program may also provide VCR-like functions. While streaming has many advantages over downloading, it too has its drawbacks.